In one of the more interesting announcements to come of the original Warhammer fantasy setting since… Blood Bowl, I guess, there comes the clumsily-titled Warhammer: End Times Vermintide.

This area looks sort of like a moonlit Renaissance festival.

It’s a co-op first-person horde shooter. That feels really good to say is going to exist.

Players will choose from five “heroes”, which will fill various archetypes with different playstyles, abilities, gear and personalities. Environments ranging from “the top of the Magnus Tower to the bowels of the Under Empire” are promised, which I hope means something to some of you. The primary, and seemingly only, enemy is going to be various forms of skaven, the franchise’s signature race of rat things.

Warhammer: End Times Vermintide is currently set to release in the last half of this year on the PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

My thoughts: This game sounds great. It’s kind of the last thing I expected, first that it’s a co-op FPS and second that it’s in the Warhammer fantasy setting, which doesn’t get a lot of attention. It was very wise of them to choose the skaven for this game. I think any other race I know of in the Warhammer franchises would have made this game feel like a totally generic bummer of an announcement, but rats? I can’t say I’ve ever played that before. It’s no Space Marine 2, but this is definitely something to keep my eye on.